Lyn's Cooker Rant

Lyn's Cooker Rant, December 2005
	There are times when something proves so irritating that you just have to get it off your chest. So it proved with our new Plastimo Neptune 2000 cooker that we bought new for the voyage. We used to have a Plastimo Atlantic cooker that had worked just fine for more than 10 years, with one replacement of the burners. But it was showing its age and didn’t satisfy modern safety requirements so we thought we would treat ourselves to a new one. We decided to buy the latest version of the same cooker, the Plastimo Neptune 2000, at the Southampton boat show, from the Southampton Calor Gas Centre. The new cooker is very similar to the old, except for a snazzy heat-proof glass oven door and a ‘flame-fail’ device on all the taps, not just the oven. At just under £400, we were hoping for something good and reliable.
What a mistake that was! Within six weeks we were having trouble with the oven door: the retaining arms, modified in design from the old version, were sawing into the frame of the cooker. We returned the cooker to the Calor Gas Centre in Southampton for a quick repair and received it back in a couple of days. It didn’t take long to find this repair was not working but agreed to wait till we were next in Southampton to take it back. Not only were the retaining arms still cutting the frame, but the door no longer fitted correctly and was letting heat escape. The cooker was sent off to the manufacturer to resolve the problem but on its return to Southampton it had obviously been dropped with some force, smashing the glass door and knocking a severe dent into one side. We demanded, and after some quibbling, received a new cooker. At least this seemed to cure the arms, but more problems were to follow. The oven was not used much for a while. Then, on our crossing to the Canary Islands, I decided to bake some bread. Afterwards the burner and grill taps were stuck. The burner taps freed when the oven cooled but one of them started to leak gas, while the grill tap was totally seized. This is apparently a ‘known problem’ that other owners have had. We pulled the taps apart, unstuck and re-greased them, but even so they persist in sticking whenever the oven is used (sometimes so that we cannot turn off the gas on a burner) and two have repeatedly leaked gas. It hasn’t helped that they rely on minute, precisely fitting washers in the flame-fail device to stop them leaking. With repeated dismantling these easily get lost and we have had to fabricate a replacement for one. For obvious reasons we cannot return the cooker, nor is it easy to pursue the case for getting our money back. The best Calor Gas Centre could offer was a pair of replacement taps. We had these sent to Plymouth with no idea when we shall ever get them. In any case, they are no different from the old ones, and there are no guarantees that they will not also stick. But the story of our cooker continues. It is mounted on gimbals to allow it to remain upright as the boat heels. After the bread was made, a reflector plate on the base of the cooker seemed to have warped slightly and was catching as it swung, getting progressively more bent and so more inclined to catch. On one occasion a saucepan of hot water was thrown over as the cooker abruptly stopped in its swing. So we put it on the cabin floor to sort it out. While standing there a sudden wave rocked the boat, and the cooker, which is not well balanced due to the heavy glass door, fell over onto its front, smashing the door into a million fragments. This was a real catastrophe because without the oven there would be no more bread on the voyage. Our only hope was of some kind of repair at our next stop, Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands. Obviously a replacement glass door would be out the question in such an out of the way place, but we thought a machine shop might cut and fit a piece of aluminium in the gap. I think if we had known how far we were going to have to walk carting the broken door, we would have settled for no bread. Following a clue in our pilot guide, the first place we tried was the offices of a boat yard (1) a mile and a half out of town. The manager told us "no problem" but the metal shop had finished for the day, could we come back tomorrow. We trailed back the next day to the metal shop (2), to find the only aluminium sheet in the entire place was a battered piece that looked like it might have been an old PC casing. And flat refusal to take on the job of fitting it. So we then walked to a smaller boatyard (3), three miles in the opposite direction. Yes they could do it, and proceeded to do a most delicate, but entirely unnecessary weld on the door. Then they stopped – could we supply the aluminium! We thought we had explained that that was what we needed. They suggested perhaps a place along the road would have some. This turned out to be a Shell petrol station (4). The proprietor was sympathetic though and recommended a place called ‘Steel’ not far away. We were now walking through miles of dirt track and slum housing with goats and chickens outside. After various enquiries we eventually found ‘Steel’ (5), a wholesaler where they had enormous sheets of aluminium, far too large and expensive for our needs. Another customer was buying various metal pipes and loading them into a beat-up minivan. He said he could help us as he ran a metalwork school on the edge of the town (6). He drove us there (in the back of the van with the pipes hanging out the back and through the passenger window), but after we had hung around for a while he then seemed to change his mind, and took us back towards the town to find a shop he thought could do the job (7). It looked small and unpromising, with canteen equipment in the window, and in any case was shut for an extended lunch break. As we now didn’t know where we were, it took a long walk to get back to the yacht. With no further leads, later that afternoon we walked back again and to our surprise the English-speaking proprietor reckoned he could do us a good repair with the right thickness of aluminium in three days. And so he did, for little more than £10. It is ironic that design modifications supposedly intended to make the cooker safer have actually made ours a lot more dangerous. We hope now we can keep the cooker going without gassing ourselves until we reach the United States where we will buy a new one - of a different make. Mindelo. (S) marks Sentinel and (D) the dinghy landing. (1) and (2) are a mile to the left, (6) just to the right. Postscript We bought a Canadian made Force 10 cooker. "It's lovely", says Lyn.

Lyn's Cooker Rant, December 2005

Lyns Woe

There are times when something proves so irritating that you just have to get it off your chest. So it proved with our new Plastimo Neptune 2000 cooker that we bought new for the voyage.

We used to have a Plastimo Atlantic cooker that had worked just fine for more than 10 years, with one replacement of the burners. But it was showing its age and didn’t satisfy modern safety requirements so we thought we would treat ourselves to a new one. We decided to buy the latest version of the same cooker, the Plastimo Neptune 2000, at the Southampton boat show, from the Southampton Calor Gas Centre. The new cooker is very similar to the old, except for a snazzy heat-proof glass oven door and a ‘flame-fail’ device on all the taps, not just the oven. At just under £400, we were hoping for something good and reliable.

What a mistake that was! Within six weeks we were having trouble with the oven door: the retaining arms, modified in design from the old version, were sawing into the frame of the cooker. We returned the cooker to the Calor Gas Centre in Southampton for a quick repair and received it back in a couple of days. It didn’t take long to find this repair was not working but agreed to wait till we were next in Southampton to take it back. Not only were the retaining arms still cutting the frame, but the door no longer fitted correctly and was letting heat escape. The cooker was sent off to the manufacturer to resolve the problem but on its return to Southampton it had obviously been dropped with some force, smashing the glass door and knocking a severe dent into one side. We demanded, and after some quibbling, received a new cooker.

At least this seemed to cure the arms, but more problems were to follow. The oven was not used much for a while. Then, on our crossing to the Canary Islands, I decided to bake some bread. Afterwards the burner and grill taps were stuck. The burner taps freed when the oven cooled but one of them started to leak gas, while the grill tap was totally seized. This is apparently a ‘known problem’ that other owners have had. We pulled the taps apart, unstuck and re-greased them, but even so they persist in sticking whenever the oven is used (sometimes so that we cannot turn off the gas on a burner) and two have repeatedly leaked gas. It hasn’t helped that they rely on minute, precisely fitting washers in the flame-fail device to stop them leaking. With repeated dismantling these easily get lost and we have had to fabricate a replacement for one.

For obvious reasons we cannot return the cooker, nor is it easy to pursue the case for getting our money back. The best Calor Gas Centre could offer was a pair of replacement taps. We had these sent to Plymouth with no idea when we shall ever get them. In any case, they are no different from the old ones, and there are no guarantees that they will not also stick.

But the story of our cooker continues. It is mounted on gimbals to allow it to remain upright as the boat heels. After the bread was made, a reflector plate on the base of the cooker seemed to have warped slightly and was catching as it swung, getting progressively more bent and so more inclined to catch. On one occasion a saucepan of hot water was thrown over as the cooker abruptly stopped in its swing. So we put it on the cabin floor to sort it out. While standing there a sudden wave rocked the boat, and the cooker, which is not well balanced due to the heavy glass door, fell over onto its front, smashing the door into a million fragments. This was a real catastrophe because without the oven there would be no more bread on the voyage.

Our only hope was of some kind of repair at our next stop, Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands. Obviously a replacement glass door would be out the question in such an out of the way place, but we thought a machine shop might cut and fit a piece of aluminium in the gap. I think if we had known how far we were going to have to walk carting the broken door, we would have settled for no bread.

Following a clue in our pilot guide, the first place we tried was the offices of a boat yard (1) a mile and a half out of town. The manager told us "no problem" but the metal shop had finished for the day, could we come back tomorrow. We trailed back the next day to the metal shop (2), to find the only aluminium sheet in the entire place was a battered piece that looked like it might have been an old PC casing. And flat refusal to take on the job of fitting it. So we then walked to a smaller boatyard (3), three miles in the opposite direction. Yes they could do it, and proceeded to do a most delicate, but entirely unnecessary weld on the door. Then they stopped – could we supply the aluminium! We thought we had explained that that was what we needed. They suggested perhaps a place along the road would have some. This turned out to be a Shell petrol station (4). The proprietor was sympathetic though and recommended a place called ‘Steel’ not far away. We were now walking through miles of dirt track and slum housing with goats and chickens outside. After various enquiries we eventually found ‘Steel’ (5), a wholesaler where they had enormous sheets of aluminium, far too large and expensive for our needs. Another customer was buying various metal pipes and loading them into a beat-up minivan. He said he could help us as he ran a metalwork school on the edge of the town (6). He drove us there (in the back of the van with the pipes hanging out the back and through the passenger window), but after we had hung around for a while he then seemed to change his mind, and took us back towards the town to find a shop he thought could do the job (7). It looked small and unpromising, with canteen equipment in the window, and in any case was shut for an extended lunch break. As we now didn’t know where we were, it took a long walk to get back to the yacht. With no further leads, later that afternoon we walked back again and to our surprise the English-speaking proprietor reckoned he could do us a good repair with the right thickness of aluminium in three days. And so he did, for little more than £10.

It is ironic that design modifications supposedly intended to make the cooker safer have actually made ours a lot more dangerous. We hope now we can keep the cooker going without gassing ourselves until we reach the United States where we will buy a new one - of a different make.

Mindelo
Mindelo. (S) marks Sentinel and (D) the dinghy landing. (1) and (2) are a mile to the left, (6) just to the right.

Postscript
We bought a Canadian made Force 10 cooker. "It's lovely", says Lyn.

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